Pick a Path
by KissofJudas
Summary: Cloud's got three options left at this point - and he's got to pick one before it's too late to choose. One-shot. Slight Cluffie.


_Your path has been a long and difficult one...hasn't it?_

Cloud bolted upright. Surrounded by white, he was sitting on some kind of ground, though if he knew what it was, it was evading him now. There was a girl in front of him, and it was as if he knew her but couldn't remember a name. It was Aerith but it wasn't...it was his mother but not... He didn't know. He didn't think it was important.

"Did you say something to me?"

_Look at the path you have walked._ Her lips never moved as she spoke. _Shall we start from the beginning?_

"What path?"

_The path of your life, of course._ The room - if you could call it that - spun slightly and they were hovering above a pathway. The way behind them was covered in footsteps, treading back and forth on each other, impossible to tell who had walked where, or how many people had been there.

"What's with all the footsteps?"

_That is your time with Shinra. The footprints are yours and Zach's._

Right, of course. That explained the confusion. Looking ahead, there was one track - no, one and a half. It looked like someone was attempting to walk in the other's footsteps and failing. "Is that me? Trying to believe I was Zach?"

_Yes. But not succeeding entirely._

Cloud walked through the air, watching the footsteps. Other footsteps came and went, but none stayed for long. But then a set of three did. "Are those..."

_The original members of AVALANCHE - Biggs, Wedge, Jessie. They helped shape you through this time._ The woman gestured to a fourth set that came over just a few more paces down the path. _And Barret joins them._

Cloud watched as he walked, identifying each person that came into his life: Tifa, Marlene, the other members of the group as they joined - but the one that stood out the most to the swordsman was Aerith's. Hers came in first, and wherever her footprints marked, flowers grew. His eyes burned as they tried to remember how to cry. And all too soon, her prints and the flowers veered off, a sudden change of position, but he could always see a faint set of prints just off to the right. Each person had left their mark on this path. All of them just sets of footprints along the road.

The room shifted again, and slowly the footprints began to pull away. "Hey, what's happening now? Where in my life are we?"

_This is after Meteor. Ahead you will see them come back again, when Kadaj and his brothers returned. But again they fade away._

"Yeah, but I still see all of them and everything out in the real world. Around here, the footprints have got to keep close by, right?"

The woman shook her head. _No, Cloud. The others, though you may speak to them, do not walk the same path as you anymore._ The room shifted again, and now only two walked side by side, a distance apart from each other.

"Who... what's this?"

_This is you and Tifa._ Cloud felt as if a knife had been plunged into his stomach. _She is there, but she is not really with you anymore._

Tifa's prints slowly drifted apart - or had Cloud's pulled away? It was hard to tell. The road turned and while Cloud walked along it, Tifa did not. "That's when I left the bar, the delivery service."

_Yes._

"So now I'm just walking on my own? Does the rest of this path just look like me walking on my own?"

She shook her head, and with it the room turned once more. The path was at a three-way split. _This is where you must choose._

"This... is this my life now?" The woman nodded. "Then what are the three paths?"

_Each is an opportunity. A single choice of one person or another remaining in your life - or perhaps, being invited into your life - will choose which path you take._

"Well who do I pick to get each path?" The woman just shook her head. "You can't tell me?"

_No, Cloud._

"Then can I see them?"

_You cannot see the future...but I can show you glimpses of what might be, if you choose each path._ Cloud nodded, that seemed fair. _I will warn you now; they will be vague, brief. Choose which path you would like to see first. _

He looked at the three paths. The path directly in front of him was dark and covered by trees that reminded him of the Forgotten City. The one on the left was brighter, but seemed to have many twists and turns, and the land grew hilly beyond it. The one to the right, however...was so much brighter than the others. It seemed as if no cloud or shade could ever keep the sun from shining, and while the land seemed almost mountainous, plants and flowers were everywhere.

"Let me see this one." He pointed ahead of him.

In an instant, images began to flash before his eyes. Himself, in a small house - possibly his current apartment. Him leaning against the well in Nibelheim, looking up to the stars. Him at a bar, staring into a drink, an impossibly sad look on his face. Him at a church - at a wedding? - dressed in a suit but it wasn't him at the altar...

The images faded and the road came back. He frowned. "Why wasn't anyone... but you can't tell me, can you?"

_This path is obvious, though. Isn't it, Cloud?_

"Yeah, I'm always by myself."

_This is the path you will follow if your life continues on as you are living it now._

"I end up alone?" She didn't have an answer. Cloud was incredulous. "Show me that one then." He pointed to the one on the left.

New images began to play in his mind. A different home, where he was sitting in front of a fireplace and watching the news. A child with dusty blonde hair on a swing set, calling for his father to watch. Him and a woman - he couldn't tell who - together but Cloud could tell that he wasn't really there, not really... Again by the well at Nibelheim, but this time that woman was with him... The two fighting, two children in the background hiding in fear. Him at a desk, staring at a book, clutching a few Gil in his hand. Again, him at a bar.

He shook his head as reality returned. "I wasn't... I wasn't really happy, was I?" The woman had no answer. _I mean, I guess I was kinda happy,_ he thought. _But it's not like it used to be. Not like I wish it was. I wonder who the girl was._

_Are you ready to see the final path?_ she asked softly, pointing.

"I dunno, it's kinda sunshine and roses - weirds me out a little." The woman smiled and gestured again. He nodded and the images arose.

This time, the house he sat in seemed bright and airy, and in an entirely different climate. He was on a porch, looking up at the sunny sky, one hand shielding his eyes as he smiled. Several children this time, all running over to him with objects in their hands - and he laughed as he tried to look at them all. A quiet evening in a living room with a woman, different from the last one but still he could not tell who she was, as they spoke in whispers to each other. A dark night now, one with rain and thunder, as he stood in the cold and she in the doorway, screaming at each other. Him at a bar, but this time as he sat she came up behind him and begged him in a voice that was both so familiar and so alien to come home... Him on one knee and her giggling hysterically in some beautiful oasis...

As the roads came back, Cloud's mind was still distant, thinking of those images. "There's problems."

_There always are._

"But... I was happy there...I think."

_I think you would be._

"How do I make that happen? How do I get to be happy like that again? Who is she?"

_I've said it already; I cannot tell you. But you will see her, and when you do you will see your unborn children in her eyes, and you will see that sunlit oasis, and you will know. Perhaps you will not know immediately - but you will know._

"You think I'll find her?"

_I think if you are meant to walk that path, you will._

Cloud stood up straight, looking up to where he imagined the sky to me, and shoved his hands in his pockets. "Did you get to see your paths like this? Does everyone...get to do this?"

_No._

"No you didn't, or no, not everyone gets to?" She merely smiled. "Aerith..."

_I am not your flower girl, Cloud. I am not anyone. I am simply me - and you are running out of time._

"But wait! How am I supposed to know how to pick the right path?"

_Whatever path you choose is "right", Cloud. Whether or not it will lead to your oasis is another matter entirely._

.

.

...

.

.

"Spikey? Jeez, Cloud - are you okay?"

His head was throbbing as he sat up, small beads of ice and snow pelting at his face as the wind blew. "What?"

"You're damn hard to see in all this snow!" Barret reached down a hand to help Cloud up, which he gratefully took. "Think the bird musta kicked you in the chest. You went down like a bag o' Materia."

"I...I got kicked." He brushed the snow off his clothing, all the white around him bringing him forcibly back to the world he'd just envisioned himself in. "Yeah...sorry. Must have been hard."

"Tha's what I'm sayin'!" The one-armed gunman shook his head. "Damn. Now we gotta find them others. Think Tif and Cid went back for the Shera, so it's just--"

"_Viiiiinnieeeeeee!_" Cloud heard the youngest member of the team wail from somewhere in the distance. "Come _ooooonn._ I'm cold and I'm in snow up to my shorts and I can't feel my legs anymore and I'm _cooooooold._"

"Yes, I do remember you mentioning that." A moment later, the cloaked gunman came into view, a rather unimpressed and most likely frigid ninja attempting to tromp along behind in his bootprints.

"Vinnie, you got a cape and everything. Help a ninja out, okay? I'm _COLD_!"

Vincent came up to Cloud a moment later and set his good hand on the swordsman's shoulder. "You're fine?"

"Yeah - just got the wind kicked out of me or something." Cloud nodded. "I'll be fine."

"Ughhhhh I hate the snow and I hate this continent and I hate Chocobos and why are we even heeeeere," Yuffie whined as she hopped through the thigh-deep snow to stand behind Vincent and attempt to burrow under his cape, an action he deftly avoided. She groaned again, stomping her foot in protest. "Vinnie!"

"Yuffie, if you had done as we'd advised and dressed for the weather, perhaps you would not be so cold," Vincent said softly, turning in a circle to swirl the cape out of Yuffie's grasp.

"Well I don't have warm clothes, Vinnie, I'm a Wutain princess. We don't believe in snow." She stuck out her tongue, but then quickly pulled it back in as she hunkered down in attempt to warm her long legs.

As much as it was entirely her fault, Cloud did have to feel a little sorry. It was probably entirely true that she didn't have warm clothing to wear, and leave it to Yuffie to want to harass the most serious member of the group for warmth. "Yuffie." She spun to look at Cloud. "Come here."

"But there are no tracks over to you," she said, a pout in her voice that was most likely at least half sincere.

Taking pity on the young ninja, Cloud walked over and shrugged off the fur-lined jacket he'd grabbed before coming back up here and draped it over her shoulders. Grinning at him gratefully, she slipped her arms through the sleeves and zipped it up, practically disappearing in the fur as she flipped up the hood. "Now hold still." Cloud bent down slightly, and just as the ninja was about to ask him why he wanted her to stay still, he scooped her up into his arms and sidestepped behind Vincent. "Vincent, you block the wind as best you can, and we'll go after the airship."

The gunman just nodded and began plodding through the snow again. Yuffie beamed up at Cloud. "You're the bestest."

"I do what I can." And as he smirked down at her, he thought maybe - just maybe - he might have an inkling of where that oasis might be.

As weird as it may have been to think it.


End file.
